Father Asoghik criticized the Armenian authorities for ignoring the interests of the Armenian Church in their interactions with UNESCO

ArmInfo. Father Asoghik Karapetyan, a member of the National Commission for UNESCO in Armenia, criticized the Armenian authorities for ignoring the interests of the Armenian Apostolic Church in their interactions with UNESCO.

"We learned from the news that a visit to Zvartnots Cathedral was organized for the UNESCO Director-General, who is in Armenia. If there was an opportunity to visit Zvartnots, why not visit the Holy See of Etchmiadzin? Why not present, with the approval of UNESCO itself, the wonderfully restored and luxuriously decorated See? The See was the one that was submitted for inclusion on the UNESCO World Heritage List, and Zvartnots Cathedral was only part of that application.

This is regrettable and reprehensible; such a decision and action are an absolute indicator of the lack of statehood and a higher state consciousness." "The Armenian Church, with its See, exalts and is the owner of its entire world heritage," Father Asoghik wrote on his Facebook page.

It is worth noting that on October 17, it was announced that UNESCO Director-General Khaled El-Enany, who is in Armenia to participate in the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the Convention on Biological Diversity, visited the Zvartnots Cathedral, which is included on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Zvartnots is a cathedral dedicated to St. Gregory the Illuminator, a monument of 7th-century Armenian architecture, located near Yerevan and Vagharshapat. In 2000, the ruins of the cathedral and the surrounding archaeological site were included on the UNESCO World Heritage List. According to one version, the name, translated from ancient Armenian, means "temple of the watchful angels," from the Armenian zvartun, meaning angel. According to the Armenian historian Sebeos, it was built during the reign of Catholicos Nerses III the Builder in 640-650, who planned to move his residence from Dvin to Vagharshapat. In the 10th century, the temple collapsed during an earthquake due to the weakness of the second-tier support joints. The ruins of Zvartnots were discovered during excavations in 1901-1907. By now, the first tier has been almost entirely reconstructed.